LADM in the Classroom

This book as a .pdf-file (20 Mb)Extended version

AUTHORS

Christiaan Lemmen
Malumbo Chipofya
Andre da Silva Mano
Abdullah Kara
Dennis Ushiña Huera
Peter van Oosterom
Eftychia Kalogianni
Eva-Maria Morscher- Unger
Javier Morales Guarin
Anthony Beck
Stephan Honer
Rohan Bennett
Paula Dijkstra
Jaap Zevenbergen

This work is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International

FOREWORD

FIG is proud to endorse this publication ‘LADM in the Classroom’. Building an effective and sustainable Land Administration System requires coordination among many agencies, each tasked with different functional roles, including but not limited to land tenure, land use planning, land valuation, and land development. Consistent and easy exchange of information is therefore vital. The Land Administration Domain Model (LADM) was first proposed to support the establishment of a common view on land administration across agencies involved, facilitating not only information exchange but also consistency of information across different land administration functions.

FIG has played a key role in developing the LADM standard, with contributions from multiple commissions over decades. The first edition followed an incremental approach, with expert reviews from 2002 to 2006. FIG submitted a proposal to ISO TC 211, which was accepted in 2008, leading to LADM's publication as an international standard in 2012.

The development of LADM has benefited from inputs by ISO TC 211 experts and the LADM Users Community, with findings documented in professional and scientific publications. LADM adoption is evident from its adaptations into more than forty country profiles with implementations in ten countries. Its versatility as a generic land information model is demonstrated by its specialisation into the Social Tenure Domain Model (STDM). Ongoing developments are shared through FIG congresses and workshops.

Despite the considerable progress in LADM adoption, there is a dearth of teaching and learning materials suited for students and practitioners from the land domain. A major challenge is the gap in technical skills - to be able to read and correctly interpret LADM models one must understand Unified Modelling Language (UML) class models which are, to say the least, foreign to most practitioners and students of Land Administration.

In response, the approach of this book initially eliminates the need to understand UML class models. The focus is on how information about concrete Land Administration situations can be structured within a Land Information System. All materials are based on a singular hypothetical case study giving the authors the flexibility to demonstrate a wide variety of scenarios. The cadastral map and other data are made available as a QGIS project enabling their reuse for teaching and other purposes such as rapid prototyping for brainstorming or demonstrating ideas. The illustration of LADM concepts through concrete cases helps the reader to understand how abstract Land Administration concepts such as rights, restrictions, and responsibilities can be realized in an actual Land Administration system.

Preface

The ideas behind this book originate from the our experiences teaching Land Information Modelling using the LADM in the Land Information Systems and Models (LISM) course at ITC. During the Covid period we learned that there is a need for teaching materials that can be used both online and onsite. This has resulted in this LADM book with a set of presentation slides. The slides refer to the figures in the book. The book explains examples of people to land relationships from the map, then their representation in a database. Finally, the LADM is explained in UML. All this is further supported by possible exercises in a real database environment.

This book aims at sharing knowledge and introducing interested parties to the land administration domain model. The book and figures may be useful in giving explanations of the LADM in presentations. The contents of the book can also be useful when making proposals for tests, research or validations in reports or other documents.

The target audience includes students, teachers, trainers and professors at universities and vocational schools, designers and developers of land administration supporting software in governments and companies, and all those involved in land administration: surveyors, lawyers, conveyors, users of land administration information and other interested professionals such as ICT experts.

Christaan Lemmen, Malumbo Chipofya, and Andre da Silva Mano
Enschede, April 2025

Read the full FIG Publication LADM in the Classroom Extended version in pdf (20 MB)

Read the FIG Publication 84: The Land Administration Domain Model - An Overview

This work is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International

International Federation of Surveyors (FIG), University of Twente, Delft University of Technology, and Kadaster
April 2025

International Federation of Surveyors (FIG)
Kalvebod Brygge 31–33
DK-1780 Copenhagen V
DENMARK
Tel. + 45 38 86 10 81
E-mail: FIG@FIG.net
www.fig.net

Published in English
Copenhagen, Denmark
ISSN 2311-8423 (pdf)
ISBN 978-87-93914-24-7 (pdf)

Published by
International Federation of Surveyors (FIG)

Front cover images:
Upper left: photo by Kwabena Asiama
Upper right: design of the virtual environment and interface by Ping Mao
Lower left: photo by Kadaster International (Liliana Merizalde)
Lower right: design of the fictitious map by Christiaan Lemmen
Diagram at the bottom: Peter van Oosterom and Christiaan Lemmen
Back cover diagram: Abdullah Kara, Peter van Oosterom and Christiaan Lemmen